Wasteland 2 Director's Cut Digital Classic Edition

I received the "Director's Cut" of Wasteland 2 for free a while back and what a gem it turned out to be! - If you're a fan of the turn-based isometric role-playing-games like Fallout 1 & 2 and enjoy the western look of New Vegas, then my friend you're in for a treat. The two series share so many similarities that for a long time I actually thought they were set in the same post-apocalyptic world. - Sadly, I fear Fallout/Wasteland fans will be the only ones that truly appreciate this title, since newcomers will be immediately put off by the DATED GRAPHICS and difficulty in CREATING A COMPETENT TEAM. - Fear not however, as there are many guides to creating the "perfect team" found over the internet. I admit to even using a mod called "Wasteland 2 save and char editor" found over at Nexusmods.com to adjust some of my stats later on, so as to not start the game all over again. Thing is, once I actually started playing, everything just fit into place and I stopped worrying about having the "perfect team". - When it comes to graphics, you either accept the dated look or move on. I recommend at least grabbing "Wasteland2 DC Patchwork Mod" from Nexusmods.com, since it fixes the camera view a bit. - Voice acting is good, just wish there was more of it. Ambient music is also good. - Without a doubt the BEST PART about Wasteland 2 is the journey you embark on. Exploring the war-torn world, meeting different factions each with their own quirks, picking sides and settling disputes, all make for a great time. - Just make sure you have ample free time as the campaign is quite lengthy, taking place on 2 large maps, Arizona and California. Nobody that finished this game can complain that it was too short. As I said in the beginning, Wasteland 2 is a real gem. But the initial experience can feel more like a "diamond in the rough".

Disclaimer; I was a kickstarter backer for Wasteland 2 I never played the first wasteland and when I looked into it; I felt that it was a touch before my time. I've played older CRPGs but Wasteland is quite different from the ones I've played from the late 80s. The best way to describe how Wasteland 2 plays is to look at Jagged Alliance (1 and 2) and Fallout Tactics. Wasteland 2 has many elements from both games combined with some elements you see in the older open world CRPGs from the late 80s and early 90s. Wasteland 2 has significantly more player involvement with the story compared to Jagged Alliance or Tactics, but not to the extent of Fallout 1 or 2. Be forewarned: your characters do not have personal interactions with NPCs so the game WILL feel empty and hollow if you are expecting dialogue interaction on the level of JRPGs. The dialogue is structured so that NPCs are essentially addressing your party as a whole, not individuals. The combat can sometimes feel a touch "same-y" as you near the end of various areas, but each new area changes things up enough to prevent it from getting stale. One carry-over characteristic of older CRPGs is that almost all loot drops and chests are completely RANDOM. They will have some algorithm like; "Chest contains random tier 1 ammo, and random junk drop" but you'll almost never get the same thing twice out of the same chest. On the flip side of things; the game feels rough lacking polish. Wasteland 2 is fully playable but the character models look like they are from neverwinter nights 1! The mechanics in combat can feel a touch clunky aswell. Bottomline; If the idea of merging Jagged Alliance 2, Fallout Tactics, and older CRPGs in a post apocalyptic universe sounds attractive, you will probably enjoy this game.

The game is enjoyable. If you like the post-apocalyptic RPG genre (like Fallout), you should like this title. However, note that the game is badly programmed. I am not talking about bugs, but about optimization. I am playing on an Alienware 17 laptop (i7, nVidia 980m) and this game, even if nothing is moving on the screen, sends the fans to their highest RPM in less than a minute. I can play games like The Witcher 3 at very high settings, without hearing the fans running.. but not Wasteland 2. I would give it a 4 if it wasn't for the game bad optimization, which probably is related to the Unity engine they decided to use.

The game is riddles by small defaults, which in the long time will make you resent the game more and more. Exemples: No switch the game to combat mode, no hide mode nor even cautious walk while it's asked (AG). No pause before a fight to prepare an ambush. Don't throw explosives throught doors, those are too low. As there is no stealth, you have to start a fight before being able to use animal calm or robot hacking, and then, the xp reward is riduculous compared to normal fight. I received 2 herbs with differents effects, the game mixed them withour asking. You can't organize the way your rangers walk, only who is leading the party. Dialogue talents are to be used asap, if not, the possibility desappear. Use of competences are sometimes by right clicking sometimes you have to use a talent from your shortcuts, it's nowhere explained.PNJ and interactive object are pixels size, damn, it's not a point and click. It's okay-ish at the beginning but become more and more tedious, some zones are reallly big. Some competence are not really interesting (animal handling). Sniper and AR are the kings. There might be a key to go back to tutorial advices but it's hidden in the tutorial, nothing is explained Some quest ask you to act a certain way and will punish you hard if you ever try to be a little independant. And so much more. Personnally i stopped the game while trying to save tom 's wife: i received the quest, dialogue ends he runs like hell out of the screen, i try to follow but too late, 10 sec after, he's dead and mission fail. Ok let's start again, explore a little before and see what killed him. Ok a group of monster, i kill them go back to the guy and then i see that he killed himself !!! WTF Controlling A..H.... creators Before you try Wasteland 2, be warned that the develloppers don't really respect you and love to make fun of you (at least 2 party kill by detonating explosives, lots of extremly difficult safe to crack with just shit inside etc etc) Prison was OK

The spiritual successor of Fallout 1 & 2 is also a post-apocalyptic RPG where instead of starting with one character, you get to build a squad of 4 desert rangers. Pretty much all you do in this game is combat and unfortunately combat is not that great. There are no formations for your squad and there is no stealth, so engaging in combat can be a lot of micro-management. Characters have to be positioned individually while the enemy might come close enough and start combat themselves and ruin your plans. Just because you positioned somebody before the combat, it doesn't mean that they'll keep their position when the turn-based combat starts and each character has to belong to it's own square. Repeat this enough times and you'll get enough of it pretty soon. The range of the weapons is pretty limited and you can't target anything outside of it. Makes sense that you have penalties when firing rifles (very) close range but 0% is ridiculous. I disagree that this is really an open world game because there is not much else to be done besides the "main quest". Your party can have a lot of skills for situations other than combat and you do get to use those skills. Those skills give you a success percentage for a particular action, so even if you have a 10% chance of something, you can abuse the game with scum saving until you succeed. A way to make the game more challenging (and fun?) is to never re-roll your skills check. The main difference between the difficulty levels is in how much damage you take and deal. A higher difficulty, while extra challenging, might not be really worth the pain of a poor combat system. Rating: Three goats. And they are all the best! http://pixelloot.com